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The Aviation Historian
The modern journal of classic aeroplanes and the history of flying
®
ON A WING AND A PRAYER
The 1971 Rolls-Royce Bankruptcy
ISSUE
34
2
THE AVIATION HISTORIAN
Issue No 34
Published quarterly by:
The Aviation Historian
PO Box 962
Horsham RH12 9PP
United Kingdom
Subscribe at:
www.theaviationhistorian.com
The Aviation Historian
The modern journal of classic aeroplanes and the history of flying
®
Editor’s Letter
FIRST, A VERY happy new year to all our readers. With 2020
having been one of the oddest and most trying in living
memory, and with Covid-19 vaccines now being rolled out,
let’s have faith that 2021 will see at least the beginning of a
return to a more normal life, whatever that will look like in a
(hopefully) post-Covid world.
Our previous issue,
TAH33,
incorporated our first ever
colourised cover image, and it generated a fair bit of
interesting feedback in correspondence and on social media.
Reader Stephen Luscombe remarked: “I don’t mind
colourisation as long as [the artist] has tried hard to get the
colours right — it is really about evoking a mood”. On the
other hand, colourisation is clearly a bugbear of prolific
aviation author Graham Simons, who said: “I strongly
disagree with it; it’s ‘faking’ history, simple as that —
something no historian should ever do. You have freely
admitted what has been done, but ten years down the road I
bet there will be someone on the internet vehemently
claiming it’s a colour original”. Our Managing Editor, Mick
Oakey, adds another view: “When we reproduce archive
black-and-white images, we regularly adjust brightness and
contrast if the original print is faded. So even monochrome
images are often manipulated to some extent, and people do
not object to that”.
All are valid perspectives and raise very good points. My
own feeling is that colourisation adds a different flavour and
can sometimes enhance and clarify a photograph; however,
we will only ever use it sparingly in
TAH.
We will always aim
for the best possible accuracy, and will make it clear that the
image has been modified. It’s a fascinating debate, and I
would certainly like to know what you think.
Finally, this new issue of
TAH
contains the usual rich and
varied mixture of articles, with a global reach, spanning 12
decades. We even explore a 1950s RAE concept for a fur-
covered Mach 5 personal transport . . .
ISSUE NUMBER 34
(published January 15, 2021)
TM
EDITOR
Nick Stroud
e-mail nickstroud@theaviationhistorian.com
MANAGING EDITOR
Mick Oakey
e-mail mickoakey@theaviationhistorian.com
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Amanda Stroud
FINANCE MANAGER
Lynn Oakey
For all telephone enquiries:
tel +44 (0)7572 237737 (mobile number)
EDITORIAL BOARD
Gregory Alegi, Dr David Baker, Ian Bott,
Robert Forsyth, Juanita Franzi, Dr Richard
P. Hallion, Philip Jarrett HonCRAeS,
Colin A. Owers, David H. Stringer,
Julian Temple, Capt Dacre Watson
WEBMASTER
David Siddall Multimedia
www.davidsiddall.com
Published quarterly by
The Aviation Historian,
PO Box 962, Horsham RH12 9PP, United Kingdom
©
The Aviation Historian
2021
ISSN 2051-1930 (print)
ISSN 2051-7602 (digital)
While every care will be taken with material
submitted to
The Aviation Historian,
no responsibility
can be accepted for loss or damage. Opinions
expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect
those of the Editor. This periodical must not, without the
written consent of the publishers first being given, be
lent, sold, hired out or otherwise disposed of in a
mutilated condition or in any unauthorised cover by way
of trade or annexed or as part of any publication or
advertising literary or pictorial matter whatsoever.
If you do not wish to keep your copy of
The Aviation Historian
(impossible to imagine, we know),
please ensure you recycle it using an appropriate facility.
Printed in the UK by
The Magazine Printing Company
using only paper from FSC/PEFC suppliers
www.magprint.co.uk
FRONT COVER
The power and — eventually — the glory. A Qantas
Boeing 747’s starboard pair of Rolls-Royce RB.211-524s, still
working hard in July 2007. See pages 10–18.
DARREN KOCH
MADE IN BRITAIN
BACK COVER
A colourised image of an RAF Douglas Boston crew
in North Africa. Vic Flintham’s two-part series on the
Rover David
close air support system starts on page 20.
VIA VIC FLINTHAM
THE AVIATION HISTORIAN
3
Issue No 34
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Issue No 34
58
CONTENTS
3
EDITOR’S LETTER
6
AIR CORRESPONDENCE
10
COLLAPSE OF AN ICON
30
72
Issue No 34
50 years ago Rolls-Royce declared bankruptcy; as one of
Britain’s “jewels in the crown”, it was a profound trauma
for the newly elected Conservative government. Professor
Keith Hayward FRAeS examines the political background
20
ROVER DAVID Pt 1
Vic Flintham opens a two-part series on the genesis and
development of the RAF’s close air-support role in North
Africa and the Mediterranean during the Second World
War, culminating in the
Rover David
“cab rank” system
Jean-Christophe Carbonel’s series on France’s “magnificent
men” continues with submarine designer Raymond
D’Ecquevilly’s (mercifully) brief flirtation with aviation
30
CES HOMMES MAGNIFIQUES:
D’ECQUEVILLY
36
DECIDEDLY COSMOPOLITAN
When the United Nations despatched a peacekeeping
force to the new Republic of the Congo in 1960, one of
the most crucial units was the truly international C-47
Squadron; Leif Hellström chronicles its four-year career
20
50
THE SHORT TRAGIC LIFE OF THE AIRSHIP
ROMA
Italian aviation historian Luigino Caliaro traces the
all-too-brief life of the ill-fated semi-rigid dirigible
Roma,
which came to grief after arriving in the USA in early 1922
58
CZECHOSLOVAKIA’S CAREFULLY SERVING AIRLINE
Maurice Wickstead charts the evolution of one of Europe’s
oldest and most resilient state airlines, Czechoslovakia’s
ČSA, established in 1923 and still going — just — despite
numerous operational and political setbacks along the way
The Korean conflict is often thought of as a purely
American affair — but, along with the valiant efforts of the
Australians, some 77 RAF pilots also participated in
combat over Korea, as Michael Napier relates
Babak Taghvaee reveals how Iran’s fleet of Boeing 747
transports and tankers, acquired in the mid-1970s, were
used on some extraordinary low-level missions
72
THE PALE BLUE LINE
94
36
84
PERSIA’S ELEPHANTS
94
BOAC & THE BRABAZON COMMITTEE
Following on from Professor Keith Hayward’s look at the
politics of the Brabazon Committee in
TAH33,
Ralph
Pegram explores how BOAC’s perspective differed
106
ON THE WINGS OF THE HANSA Pt 2
Using interviews and first-hand accounts, Albert
Grandolini continues his three-part series on the flying
career of Cambodian military pilot Major Su Sampong
114
SPECIAL DELIVERY
10
Nick Stroud provides some background for a set of
photos showing a Pan Am DC-6 delivery in Brussels
118
ARMCHAIR AVIATION
123
LOST & FOUND
124
EVERY HOME SHOULD HAVE ONE . . .
Chris Gibson takes another deep dive into the archives
to uncover a supremely optimistic 1957 Royal Aircraft
Establishment concept for a hypersonic ramjet tip-rotor-
powered VTOL personal transport. Covered in fur.
130
OFF THE BEATEN TRACK
Issue No 34
THE AVIATION HISTORIAN
5

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